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Bouncing back – five ways to develop greater emotional resilience

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Bouncing back – five ways to develop greater emotional resilience

Resilience, also known as psychological flexibility, is something we’re hearing about a lot lately.

And for good reason.

The family, personal and work-related challenges we’re all facing right now require super-human levels of resilience that some of us already possess, yet many of us struggle to find.

We were recently approached by Whittington Health NHS Trust to help them bring to life some rather clever content for a Resilience Workbook.

It got us thinking that this a subject which really should be at the top of our agendas.

 

What exactly is resilience?

The Oxford Dictionary describes resilience as: The ability of people or things to feel better quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.

And this article by Psychology Today explains that: Rather than letting difficulties, traumatic events, or failure overcome them and drain their resolve, highly resilient people find a way to change course, emotionally heal, and continue moving toward their goals.

 

How do we change course?

By taking some time to be a little kinder with ourselves and focusing on our own mental and physical wellbeing we can develop ways to bounce back from challenging moments and experiences.

Here we share five ways to become more emotionally resilient, with thanks to some rather smart individuals…

  1. Know where you stand – Our ability to be resilient varies over time and circumstance and it can help to clarify where we stand at any given moment. In their Resilience Workbook, Organisational Development Practitioner, Mala Shaunak, highlights the Resilience Capability Index (RCI) developed by Roffey Park. It includes 5 domains that can help you to assess your resilience capabilities – Perspective, Purpose, Values & Strengths, Emotional Intelligence, Physical Energy and Connections. By completing the RCI, you’ll receive an indication of how your resilience capabilities today compare against a group of your peers.
  2. Be aware of what you are thinking and feeling – Don’t give yourself a hard time for feeling the way you do. Acknowledge and manage those feelings.
    “I wholeheartedly believe you can teach yourself to be resilient by learning about your emotions, how they show up in you and what they are telling you about what you need,”
    says Executive Coach and Psychologist, Steph Tranter. “But we tend to hide from, deny and invalidate our emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones, mainly because no one has ever taught us about them or how to deal with them… If we give people skills to spot, label and manage their emotions better, there would be far less mental health (or as I prefer to call it emotional health) issues in our world.”

    The simple act of noticing and acknowledging emotions like worry or stress can help to diffuse the effect of negative emotions because your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are so closely connected. Start by being aware of what you are thinking and feeling and then diffuse (don’t deny) any related uncomfortable emotions.

  3. Spot faulty thinking patterns – As Steph describes, learning about your emotions and how you manage them is a sure-fire way to help build greater resilience. “Often what stops us being resilient is emotion, particularly stress, anxiety, worry, and frustration. Emotions can hijack our ability to think straight,” she explains.
    So, next time you spot yourself feeling negative, pessimistic or cynical… STOP. There’s a chance you’re being hijacked by ‘cognitive distortions’ or faulty thinking patterns. Take ‘should’ statements, for example. They can end up supporting a pessimistic view of life, diminishing our resilience and leading to feelings of anxiety and frustration. Next time you find yourself using a “should,” “ought to” or “must” in your language, try changing it to a “can,” “choose to” or “decide to.”
    There are many other classic thinking errors that we can all be prone to, here Psychologist Joan Rosenberg explores five of them and how you can challenge them.
  4. Know your own value – we recently had the pleasure of hearing an incredibly inspiring talk by Dr Ed Coats, Specialist Registrar in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Polar Explorer and Adventurer. Ed is currently working on the NHS frontline and he drew on his lifetime of experiences to help define what he believes helps us to become more resilient individuals, “It’s a confidence thing,” Ed explained. By learning over time to take a positive view of yourself and have faith in your strengths and abilities you’ll become a more confident and mentally resilient person. “This will give you the ability to challenge others respectfully and bounce back from failures much more quickly and healthily.”
  5. Use your support network – whether you work in a team or you’re flying solo, there will be times when you need to call on the help, guidance and emotional support of others. And it helps massively if you’ve already got that community of care in place. This TED article explains how to assemble your personal dream team of mentors, know who they are and when each of them will come into their own.

 

Keeping the muscle strong

Emma Lloyd, Learning Facilitator, Coach, Mentor and TEDx Speaker shares, one of her favourite quotes about resilience by Al Siebert…

“Resiliency is something you do, more than something you have. . .You become highly resilient by continuously learning your best way of being yourself in your circumstance.”

“This encapsulates for me that resilience is more of a verb than a noun. It is an action – something that we do. To help us build and maintain our resilience I would always encourage bite size daily practices. Think of it as your resilience muscle, with focus and time it will become even stronger.

By being a little bit more conscious a little more of the time, this will help you not only in more challenging times and will support your professional and personal growth too – it allows us to pause, think and be kind to ourselves – you really are doing brilliantly.”

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Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

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Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

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Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

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Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“We had the privilege to work with the Alive team. It was our first time to be involved in creating an animation for our patients within paediatrics. The team were approachable, friendly, creative and very accommodating. Your vision for what you want to create, is at all times acknowledged, appreciated and accommodated by the team. They worked effectively and with great passion towards our project and worked not only alongside health professionals but also our patients who really enjoyed the experience of working with the Alive team. It has given our team the confidence and inspiration to do further projects in the future. We highly recommend Alive and their exceptional team.”

DR ELENI ATHANASAKOS, Lead Paediatric Clinical Scientist — NHS Barts Health

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update our brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team to create an engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
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